NC wants to be a film star again after letting Georgia get the limelight | Opinion

North Carolina’s experience wooing the Hollywood film industry could be a movie in itself.

The script would go something like this: Enterprising Gov. Jim Hunt creates the North Carolina Film Commission in 1980. In 2006, the state adopts a tax credit incentive plan for film productions. Wilmington becomes the center of the filming industry and is dubbed “Wilmywood.”

Republicans who are skeptical of industry incentives let the film tax credit expire in 2014 and replace it with less generous capped grants. The film business fades and is further set back by boycotts over the anti-transgender “Bathroom Bill” of 2016. Meanwhile, neighboring Georgia continues to offer a bold incentive plan based on tax credits and its film industry booms.

State lawmakers improve the grant program for film and TV productions and more of them sprout in North Carolina, but the grants are not enough to draw big-budget films.

The legislature creates a Film Industry Study Committee in 2024 focused on making North Carolina a bigger player in film production. The committee meets and begins to outline ways to make North Carolina a film star again.

Reviving the industry

State Rep. Deb Butler, a Wilmington Democrat and a member of the committee, saw the damage done by the ending of the original incentives. She says the script’s twist in which Republican lawmakers are now seeking to repair that damage makes it a comedy, albeit a bittersweet one.

“It’s funny how you can destroy something and then take credit for rebuilding it,” she said.

Rebuilding it will require returning to a tax-credit incentive along the lines of Georgia’s or lifting the lid on grants.

Currently, North Carolina will pay qualifying productions a grant covering 25 percent of their in-state spending. But those grants are capped at $15 million for TV/streaming series, $7 million for feature-length films and $250,000 for commercials. Only the first $1 million of an actor’s salary counts as a qualified expense. That’s a small fraction of what top movie actors are paid.

“I’d love to have Tom Cruise in town, but we’re not going to have it with the cap we have,” Butler said.

Georgia, by contrast, offers a 20% tax credit, with an additional 10% if the film has a promotional benefit to the state. There is no limit on the amount of tax credits that a film can earn there.

North Carolina had one of its better years in film production in 2024. Smaller films, TV series and other projects generated more than $302 million in direct in-state spending. But that pales next to what Georgia’s film industry delivered last year – $2.6 billion in direct spending.

Susi Hamilton, a former Democratic state lawmaker, is now president of the Film Partnership of North Carolina, a nonprofit economic development group. She said increases in grants are helping restore the state’s film business, but more is needed. “We’re finally back on track, but we have not kept up with other states,” she said.

Kirk Englebright, president and CEO of Dark Horse Stages agrees. His company has added two new sound stages in Wilmington, but he said business could be better if North Carolina stepped up its offers to film companies. “If you ask them, ‘What is it going to take get you to come to North Carolina?,’ they’ll tell you: ‘We’re chasing incentives.’ ” he said.

Resistance to incentives

It’s possible that North Carolina could be putting up Georgia-level numbers had it stayed with its original tax-credit incentive. But Paul Stam, a former Republican lawmaker who led the push to let the tax break sunset, has no regrets. Stam, an Apex lawyer who left the legislature nine years ago, said a fiscal research report he requested said the incentive “was a complete waste of money.”

That hasn’t been the experience in Georgia. Indeed, the waste was letting much of North Carolina’s film business go to its southern neighbor. And it’s more than direct spending that was lost. The state lost exposure that fuels tourism and development.

State Rep. Maria Cervania, a Wake County Democrat and a member of the Film Industry Study Committee, said North Carolina has to sharply boost its incentives. “We do need to take a lid off it if we want to get back to where we were and get some of this business to snap back from Georgia,” she said.

With the return of film industry tax breaks or much more robust grants, North Carolina’s script could lead to a sequel to its success of more than a decade ago.

“You would see the industry come running,” Hamilton said. “When the incentives went away, you saw the business dry up quickly. Well, the converse would be true. You’d see the work grow really quickly.”

Associate opinion editor Ned Barnett can be reached at 919-404-7583, or nbarnett@newsobserver.com

This story was originally published July 29, 2025 at 2:07 PM.